Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, also known as MRSA, is a skin-eating bacteria that is resistant to many common antibiotics. MRSA can be transmitted almost anywhere, but it is particularly common in places where there are a lot of people and a lot of potential for contact. These places include hopsitals, gyms, military barracks, and schools. Untreated, MRSA has the potential to be life-threatening. It begins as a skin irritation, spreads into vital organs, and eventually causes sepsis — an infection throughout the body. And once you get sepsis, you have a 25% chance of dying. Not good odds, especially since MRSA often can be prevented with simple precautions such as washing your hands. (Although, washing your hands doesn't prevent someone from giving you MRSA while they're treating your open wound, say. So careful about who you let touch your open wounds!)

The health-care community, which is disproportionately affected by MRSA, has taken steps to decrease its spread in medical settings, and this effort has been successful. You're much less likely to get MRSA at the doctor's office today than you were 10 years ago.

But outside of the medical community, MRSA infections are as common as ever. And with the consequences of untreated MRSA being so dire, there's an obvious public health problem in letting MRSA spread within a country where quick and affordable health care is notoriously unavailable.